The Inefficiency of Aid

Inefficiency driven by ignorance is driving Dr. Lopita mad. She came up from dinner to the room this evening hopping to tell me something Deryl said that made Lopita blush. Lopita got an 8-year-old patient today who may have a congenital heart defect. She wanted to know how the organization could raise money for the girl should she need an operation. The girl had been told before she could only have the operation overseas, which Lopita said was wrong—complicated surgery can be performed in India. Actually, India is a hub for Westerners coming for affordable quality surgery. We can send the kid to Calcutta for this. Deryl had no idea this could be done in India.

There are many things people on this trip are doing that are a waste of time and money, and which seem born of a stubborn ignorance in our group. They treat this place as if it's the ass-end of the earth, which from our perspective it is but from the locals' it's the other way around. If you look at it one way it's primitive as hell and half the people live in bamboo-wall houses. But look at it from another angle and we would see everyone has a TV, a camera phone, a fridge, an email address. While we eat they take pictures of us on their phones. They're not the end of the earth, just the other side.

Clinic on the India-Burma Border

Our first day working the Zakawthar clinic. Why is that important? Because Zakawthar is separated from Burma by a narrow river. In fact the town is contiguous with the Burmese one on the other side, and the locals cross back and forth all day without getting hassled. We can't go though, whities restricted.


Half the patients crossed the border into India to get treatment from the foreign doctors. As we began there was already a 15-year-old girl lying on a bed suffering a major anxiety attack. A few minutes after Dr. Myron began treating her the entire clinic could hear her hyperventilating until she passed out and they carried upstairs to rest in the doctor's bedroom.

The people coming in from Burma truly are in much worse shape even than the Burmese Chin who have migrated to India and live here full-time. two women came in with great big goiters, there was a man with a bandage over his deformed face who had been mauled by a bear years ago and couldn't afford to have reconstructive surgery in Rangoon. So, his face healed askew and he's been walking around ever since with a bandage taped over the part that won't heal at all. Also a little girl pale with malaria,and all kinds of undernourishment and infections.

Everything they have is something they just can't afford to avoid or fix. Simple things that we all get, but that we never see bet out of control.

The worst thing by far was the birth. In the morning a young man and his pregnant wife came in. Dr. Lopita wasn't sure if anything was wrong and hoped it was just a bladder infection. Later, we were called to their house on the hill because the girl had gone into labour. She was lying on a blanket on the floor, well attended by midwives while the anxious father (who could easily be under 20) waited in the other room. Lopita thought the midwives were doing an excellent job so we left them to it.

About an hour later they called us back because the baby had been born. We came in congratulating the mother, but there was a bad air in the room. The mother was resting, wrapped up on the floor, and the midwife sat on the bed. We couldn't see or hear the baby, it was bundled up completely in the midwife's arms.

She called us over and unwrapped the child to show us. When I saw it I thought it was already dead. it was born at least two months premature, and it was the size of a skinny little guinea pig. It's skin was grey, it's eyes were shut and its mouth was dry and open. I thought I was looking at a dead body.

Outside the room Lopita said she couldn't tell if it was alive or dead, but the midwife assured her it was breathing, a little. Dr. William, the Burmese Chin physician we're working with at the clinic, brought a steroid injection to force the baby's lungs open. When he stuck the baby's thigh, it flinched, just a little, giving us hope it might survive the night. But Lopita said there was no hope it would last longer than that, and maybe William only gave the injection to make us feel better. It did indeed die in the night. 

Mizo Orphanage

Today was the eight-hour drive back to the capital of Mizoram. The road just went around and around...and around. The curves and bumps would never, we were exhausted and the drivers floored it. All drivers in Mizoram floor it, and that's not a generalization. They also like to pass, and since the entire road is a curve, on a cliff, that's dangerous driving.

At 3:00 we stopped at a roadside orphanage that takes in the abandoned from all over Mizoram, and even a few states nearby. The place was hopping by the time we arrived, with children running around outside and doctors running around inside. This is a terrible orphanage, the worst I've ever seen. But the staff try.

The entire place smelled of urine, the children were filthy, and disabled and retarded people abandoned by their families hobbled among the crowd of orphaned children. Inside one big room near the entrance was a child, maybe 12-years-old, laying on the floor and propped up on its elbows, with its crippled legs twisted uselessly behind. I couldn't tell if it's a boy or a girl, and didn't find out later that it is a little girl. The name is Rua, her hair is cropped short.

Rua was excited to see us and tried to pull herself closer when we walked in. Her arms seem strong enough but she doesn't have any means of getting around beyond the distance she can drag herself. She is just left to lay on the concrete floor in that room with splinters of wood to play with. She can't talk either, all she can say is "bee," and the meaning changes with how loudly and excitedly she can utter her word. It seems terribly lonely in there for her, in that dirty concrete room. I knelt down and began taking pictures of her face to turn the camera around and show her the photo, which she loved.

"Bee? Bee! Bee!" I couldn't take enough to satisfy her. Finally I had to leave to photograph the doctors and other orphans, but I felt terribly leaving her alone in that dog kennel, still wanting company and unable to follow. "Bee? Bee?" I went back in again and again.

There are others there as tragic as Rua, and others who are smart and healthy, eager to practice their English, and just as tragic for being thrown into the mix. The youngest is a preciously stunned four year old in a crinoline dress. The oldest is in her 80s. the old ones are the retarded ones. Too ill and embarrassing for their families to keep. One old woman, barely four feet tall, wanders around with a doll strapped to her back the way women strap babies on. A man with Downs Syndrome groans and points to a rotten black tooth at passers by.

Since there were too many volunteers to work the clinic, I got to photograph the entire time. It didn't take long for the abled children to get the nerve to ask for a picture, and of course to immediately go nuts to see how it turned out. Kids are always beautiful , but I felt sorrier than usual for these ones. They're so poor, and with only three staff members surely they really only have each other. They were dirty but obviously dressed in their best for our visit, with all the little girls' short hair pinned away from their faces.

Those who could speak English did, even if only to tell their name in a complete sentence. Those who couldn't strained to show how excited they were. They crowded in, led me around, sat me down and petted my hair and arms. Then they noticed my white skin against theirs and hurried off to find the darkest-skinned man there, and held our arms together in comparison. They unbraided and rebraided my yellow hair, thanked me, hugged me, lined up to give me five and get their picture taken all over again. It was terrible, because we had to leave them. 

When the doctors were finished checking everyone, the staff begged us to stay for supper. Dr. Myron refused repeatedly, and told us it was wrong to stay because we were in a hurry and the children needed the food that would be served to us. He was right on both counts, but once we saw the banquet they prepared we all knew it would have been another tragedy for that place if we turned our backs on them without eating.

They didn't eat. The children were sent away and the staff watched us. What a spread. They gave us food we hadn't seen since we left Canada, and much too much to feed the 11 of us. Apples, pineapples, pudding, fried chicken, sliced bread, cheese, nuts, chocolate bars—they had everything, for us. It was a terrible meal, knowing how much anticipation had gone into it, and how much they should eat it instead and how much it would hurt them if that happened.

Two ancient women had their beds behind the table. As we ate they petted our shoulders and motioned to their mouths for us to share with them. At the end we had cleaned our plates but the food left on the platters barely looked touched. We gave the orphanage some money, and the clothes we could spare. The pastor who runs the place told us about his ambitions to add a chapel, which is the last thing the orphans need. We drove away in the dark.